Dr Schmiedek said: "Further analyses indicate that the older adults' higher consistency is due to learned strategies to solve the task, a constantly high motivation level, as we as a balanced daily routine and stable mood."

He said that the findings, published in journal Psychological Science, have implications in the debate about older people and their potential in the workplace.

His colleague Professor Axel Börsch-Supan said: "One of our studies in the car production industry has shown that serious errors that are expensive to resolve are much less likely to be committed by older staff members than by their younger colleagues.

"Likewise, in other branches of industry that we have studied, one does not observe higher productivity among the younger relative to the older workers."

He added: "On balance, older employees' productivity and reliability is higher than that of their younger colleagues."